


Splendor and Death

by midnightflame



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Medieval, Angel Shiro (Voltron), Angelic Lore, Angelic Shiro, But hope still exists, Character Death, Doomed Relationship, Falling In Love, Hope, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Inspired by Fanart, Knight Keith (Voltron), M/M, Mild Language, Mutual Pining, Tragic Romance, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-13 23:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16901454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/midnightflame/pseuds/midnightflame
Summary: Shiro is tasked with one last chance at redemption by playing Guardian to a human knight. Keith doesn't understand why God would pin second chances on those likely to die.[Inspired by fanart fromv_0_3]





	Splendor and Death

**Author's Note:**

> So, I absolutely fell in love with this image by [v_0_3](https://twitter.com/v_0_3) the moment I saw [it](https://twitter.com/v_0_3/status/1063140572775530496). It's quite frankly one of the most beautiful pieces of Sheith fanart I've ever come across and I couldn't shake the image from my head for the longest time. Hence, I had to write something for it. <3 There's a little bit of backstory to this that you can find [here](https://twitter.com/v_0_3/status/1063147646607679489) as well! 
> 
> And as usual you can find me over on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ByMidnightFlame)!

_Tu vero felix, Agricola, non vitae tantum claritate, sed etiam opportunitate mortis.  
-Tactitus_

—————

“God isn’t listening anymore.”

The angel nodded his head, solemn but unperturbed by those words. What struck him though, in that very moment, was the way the man’s lips curved with a smile, as sharp as any reaper’s scythe. Poised for that cutting blow. 

A terrible, beautiful act of defiance. 

“No. But I’m not God.”

—————

There are three things Keith has learned about the angel. The first is that he is most active at night. At least, that is when the majority of their conversations take place. Though, this isn’t to say they are limited to the star-guided hours. They’ve had a handful of talks that spanned over mornings and afternoons as well, but there’s something about the night that seems to bring an added spark to the angel’s voice. As if only then is he truly alive.

Keith has debated that notion, however. The idea of life and the angelic state of being. He knows that he is alive. When a blade nicks his skin, he bleeds. When he sits at the dining table, he can see the other soldiers over their plates, soaking up bland gravy with just-shy-of-stale bread (the army’s best) and laughing over ribald jokes that have less taste to them than the chicken that occasionally graces their dinners. He sweats. He hurts. He wants better for the world and for himself. 

But he can’t say any of these things regarding the angel. 

Nothing defines his form, save for a shimmer in the air or a faint flicker from the candles when Keith believes him to be moving about his room. His voice is clear as ice though, with the sort of warmth beckoned by winter. Keith doesn’t admit it - not at all to himself and certainly not to the world - but he could wrap himself up in that sound. As soft and soothing as a lullaby, putting to bed all the aches and pains of his day. Reminding him that even without God, there are things holy and right still existing in this world.

After several weeks of intermittent conversations, that’s the sort of faith he’s come to find in this angel. 

The one calling himself Shiro. 

That’s the second thing Keith had learned about him. It’s not the angel’s official title, but it’s the one he had given Keith after three days of visitations. Angels are curious creatures as far as rumors are concerned. Many herald themselves, throwing their God-given names to the masses like alms to ailing souls. A name alone to induce devotion. And a good number of those who play witness to such acts do drop to their knees and promise piety. But as Keith knows, war tries piety the same way a freshly-killed carcass tries a starving wolf, and we all know that best intentions never fill bellies the same way they do hearts. 

There are quieter ones, though. Angels who appear to a single person and tie their fates to their souls. No one has ever understood why, and those who do never speak a word on it. As if by acknowledging the existence of this one, single entity in their lives an oath is taken. Sworn secrecy to whatever order or disorder is to come from such a pact. The public has dubbed them guardian angels, but few actually wish for one of their own.

Keith doesn’t blame them. Who would ever willingly wish for the unknown to swallow their futures like that? At least, with his fate in his own hands, he has some sort of say in the matter.

With Shiro now? Keith doesn’t know what to expect. But that prospect doesn’t frighten him nearly as much as he thought it would. 

And as for the third thing. . .the third thing. . .he doesn’t come to learn that until later. Much, much later.

—————

“You look worried.”

A nod, nothing more. Keith merely stands at the window, looking out over the hills that unfurl before the Karthulian fort he’s called home for the better part of a year now. Shiro shifts his gaze out the window as well, but every part of him remains attuned to the man standing by his side. Spring has already undone the devastation of winter’s reign. Beyond the fort’s impossibly high stone walls, deep green covers the land, brilliant blue wildflowers dot the landscape, and on the forest’s edge, he can make out the movements of a herd of deer. It’s the flowers that hold his attention, however. Just as night starts to spill over the land, their petals turn a soft lavender-grey that remind him of Keith’s gaze. In particular, the way it softens when they're alone.

All things he shouldn’t think about but inevitably does. 

“The Galra have advanced on the Altean border.” Keith delivers those words like he’s handing over an arrest warrant to a man he knows is innocent.

This is all information Shiro has already gathered. There’s a letter sitting on the desk, just to the left of the window, its pages fluttering beneath the amethyst paperweight keeping them in place. Scrawling script, tight and concise in its formation, too pretty for the words it carries, flashes into view. He’s never said as much, but Shiro has read those words as many times as Keith has. Over and over, as if ingraining their truth into his mind with every pass of his eyes. He knows where Keith’s worry stems from, but they’ll never get anywhere unless he opens the door to conversation. For as much as Shiro can read, he can’t decipher all the things that shift through Keith’s gaze.

Humans are amazingly complex like that. Near impossible not to love them for it.

“Has war been declared again?” he asks.

Keith shakes his head this time, but as he does so, he tips it in Shiro’s direction. For a brief moment, he closes his eyes, entrusting himself to the angel at his side. A motion that does not go unnoticed or unfelt. It runs through Shiro then like a gust of wind carrying the hints of smoke. Something somewhere is burning. And one day, Shiro knows it will consume him whole. 

“Will it be?”

This time, Keith nods, and his shoulders drop. Shiro brushes his fingers along the nape of Keith’s neck, watches the hair rise there in reaction, and finds himself confronted with a small smile on Keith’s lips. It disappears seconds later as Keith comes to remember himself again. Regret, Shiro finds, is a tiny sliver of emotional shrapnel that lodges itself in the one place you can’t easily retract it from. 

“The princess will never accept a marriage with their prince as long as Zarkon is king.”

War, like falling in love, is simply inevitable in some circumstances. 

That’s what Shiro saw in Keith’s eyes.

—————

He’s always liked the stars. Stories litter their histories, but he finds he likes the ones attached to the constellations. As if by traversing the routes from one glittering point to another, you could trace the lifeline of the world, how all the pieces connect, and how love transcends all the bitterness that ever tried to break it.

The fire crackles as he adds another log to it. On the opposite side of the firepit, the air shimmers, and Keith finds himself smiling. This small little thing that betrays his heart. It’s been over a year since the angel first came into his life, and in that time, he’s come to find he likes Shiro’s company unlike that of any other being that’s stepped into his life. The closest companionship he’s found to it is the one he shares with his horse, the large black mare bequeathed to him by his mother. Both had left for the war front ten years ago. Only the horse returned, with a white scar zigzagging its way down her chest.

A truce had been called shortly after that. And for the next five years, the world forgot what it meant to hate, and life continued on as if peace weren’t a fragile thing. But unsettled business had a way of igniting again, not unlike a fuse left forgotten before a powder keg; the smallest of sparks would set it off. Three years ago, it had been a dispute over the rights to a Balmeran mine. 

Keith was eighteen when war broke open again. And at twenty, another truce was set to ink (not stone). At the age of twenty, Shiro appeared. Barely a week later, a temporary truce was called in the wake of King Alfor’s ‘untimely’ death.

“You’re thinking of something. . .” Shiro says. His voice is close, but as before, Keith can’t make out any shape or form to the angel. He’s stopped trying draw images of him to now, and instead, settles into the quiet cadence of Shiro's words. Content to drown in the rich darkness of it all, the night sky and Shiro’s life-affirming presence.

“Earlier, Hunk was talking about the stars. No one has seen them move in decades. . .”

“The pikeman from the engineer’s corps?”

“Yeah. He says they used to shift across the sky with the seasons. Back before we were born. . .my mother used to tell me the stories of the constellations. Spring had its own. Fall, summer, and winter too. But now. . .” Keith turns his head to the sky. They’re reliable, at least. One always knows where they are in relation to the stars, whose land, which nation, and yet it’s just as easy to get lost by them now. “You used to be able to tell more about the world back then, I guess.”

Shiro sighs beside him. Normally, he finds himself wanting to laugh whenever Shiro does, but tonight’s is a heavier sound. The kind loaded with a history marred by scars. 

“Do you know something about that?” Keith prods, eyebrows lifted hopefully.

They say the angels have knowledge beyond human comprehension. That they’ve seen the dawn of life, and they’ve had dreams of its end. 

They also say that those visited by such beings are a damned lot. Even as such visitations are praised for their righteous holiness (for who doesn’t want to be showered by the divine light, to have said they have seen salvation?), those who are visited become pariahs of the mortal plains. 

Too holy to touch, or simply carrying all the mystique and fear of Death. 

Keith doesn’t know about all of that. Shiro hasn’t promised anything to him, nor has he chastised him for his ways. They exist, together, companionable. If nothing else, he feels that Shiro has somehow connected the severed bits of his life, making something whole of him again. Something Keith himself has spent denying, again and again, and failing to maintain any worthwhile relationship because of it. He had convinced himself a knight’s life was bound to be like that - one of loss, for war would always take from those who chose to fight. 

It didn’t make it any easier. . .calling it the selfless sacrifice as governments liked to do. It’s the same sort of propaganda sold about those who found themselves with a Guardian. And as much as the masses enjoyed heralding such notions of self-sacrificing love, few would readily take part in it. No one wanted a Guardian for it was inextricably tied to the idea of loss - loss of self, loss of comfort, loss of freedom - but how else to make it easier to accept God’s will than to paint the idea with holy light and honor the chosen heroes?

He’s no hero. And there is nothing about Shiro that weighs on him like a loss. 

“They used to move. Your mother was right about that, and about the stories,” Shiro replies after a long moment. “But the angel in charge of them was cast out of Heaven.”

Keith blinks, though he has no idea where to focus his attention. Still, the surprise is evident - eyes a bit wider than usual, lips parted by disbelief. Surprised, yes, but more than that, it unsettles him in a way he’s not used to. Like going to rinse your hands in water and finding them red with blood instead. Since the Fall, angels were very rarely thrown from Heaven, and though he knows of the Fallen visiting humans as well, their impacts were more readily felt. Tidal waves that destroyed seafront villages, avalanches that drowned towns. . .or echoes of supremacy that rallied patrons of war. Disaster rode in on the Fallen’s words. 

But the Fallen were invited, for whatever reason, by human greed and lust and ego. They weren’t nearly as feared as the Guardians.

He licks his lips, nervous for some unspeakable reason. “Why was the angel cast out?”

Silence answers him. It drags out long enough that Keith thinks Shiro had left, but as a log breaks apart in the fire, a faint shimmer charges the air beside him.

“Because he decided to change the fate of one human.”

—————

He’s strangely kind. Not that the kindness itself is strange, but rather, that most of the humans around Keith find his random acts of kindness to be such. They always look at him, baffled by what they had witnessed, and never, ever do they comment on it. Not to Keith, at least. Their words fly like carelessly shots arrows the moment he’s out of hearing range.

Shiro is endlessly amused by it all. Though they keep their distance from him now (save for a small handful of soldiers who had known him longer than the majority), most find themselves entranced by the young man. 

Today, it was watching Keith rescue a kitten from a tree, then spending the next fifteen minutes playing with it and its siblings as their mother watched from beneath a cart. Shiro had likewise been captivated by the sight. Keith had seemed oblivious to it all until a young soldier named Lance, one of the few not yet fear-bitten enough to hold his tongue, burst into laughter and called out to him. Now, if you honestly asked him, Shiro also found the explosion of red along Keith’s cheekbones to be endearing, though what Keith muttered under his breath had been a bit less than divine in its making. 

Even so, Shiro couldn’t stop himself from smiling as he watched the knight pet each of the kittens in turn before moving to stand and walk away with a bow of his head towards the mother cat.

—————

“Have you always liked them?”

Keith quirks an eyebrow at that. “Liked what?”

“Animals?”

“This isn’t going to be one of those things where you come back around to the fact that humans are animals too, is it? Because I’ve already heard that one. A lot.”

Shiro snorts. The air shimmers. Keith tries desperately not to smile and fails spectacularly. 

“All right. How about cats then?”

He hums out a few wayward notes in the wake of Shiro's question, contemplating the topic and all it might invariably lead to. As he does so, he loosens his grips on the reins and allows the mare her head for the time being. With them trudging along with the rest of the Altean troops, Keith doesn’t think she’s going to wander much. 

“I like them. They’re self-sufficient and confident without throwing themselves at the mercy of others like dogs do. But, they still appreciate a warm meal or a gentle hand. . .” 

Keith finds his words met by silence, but he knows Shiro hasn’t left his side. He’s gotten better at detecting his presence over the last year. Usually, when the angel is nearby, there’s a faint warmth to the air. Not quite as tangible as body heat, but more like a fading fire. Still strong enough to cast its light, offer its warmth but not so strong you need feet between you and it lest it scalds your skin. Shiro is the sort of warmth that invites rather than feeds your fears with its power. 

“So, that’s why. . .”

Shiro sounds amused, and that puts a flutter of worry in Keith’s heart. He doesn’t quite know why, but it flits around, disturbing the tranquility that had settled in his chest. 

Turning his gaze to the stars, Keith breathes out. An attempt to steady himself again. “Is that. . .” He shakes his head. “. . .something wrong with that?”

This time, Shiro laughs. It’s soft and melodious and makes Keith think Heaven isn’t as far away as people like to claim it is. The agitation in his chest starts to quiet. 

“No, Keith. There’s nothing wrong with that. Actually,” Shiro says, “it fits you perfectly.”

“And you like that?”

A pause. “Yeah. I guess I do.”

—————

They’ve been on the road for a month. Shiro had learned it would take six weeks before Keith’s unit, promised by Marmora for the Altean cause, would reach the northern border of Altea. Halfway there, they had met up with several other Altean troops called from their garrisons, and together they formed a force of six thousand.

“Will you be sent to the front lines?”

The truce had yet to be officially broken, but already there had been minor skirmishes, each side testing the other. A bloody prelude to what would prove to be an even bloodier symphony of war.

Human affairs all too often went that way. 

Shiro wishes he could have kept the worry from his voice, but like so many wants, it proved to be a difficult thing to manifest. The effect of it, quiet as it was, is noticeable as Keith’s shoulders stiffen and his head tips in his direction. 

“They haven’t even declared war yet. Not officially. If they haven’t by the time we reach the main army, we’ll likely settle in near the rear until Kolivan can talk with the princess.”

With a beat of his wings, Shiro lifts himself above the caravan of soldiers and their supplies. It extends for miles, with the majority of it well ahead of Keith. Even so, trepidation shoots a shudder down his body, wings and all, and he lowers himself back to Keith’s side. The mare flicks her ears toward him at his descent, but Keith keeps his gaze trained on the road ahead. 

“I know how to fight,” Keith says firmly. His lips part as he’s about to speak again only to shut abruptly as the sound of a rider approaching thunders up from behind. Nudging his mare's side with his leg, he urges her out of the way. His eyes lock on the soldier as he passes by, but with no apparent interest shown in him, he returns to his previous thoughts unhindered. “You saw me there that day. You know what I’m capable of.”

It’s something Shiro has never stopped acknowledging: Keith’s battle prowess. He beats his wings again, this time sending a wave of air rippling over horse and rider. Keith’s hair flutters beneath his helm; the smallest hint of a smile ghosts over his lips. Shiro feels his thoughts quicken, like flipping recklessly through a picture book until all the images meld into one color-doused blot, indistinguishable from one another. Barely able to make sense of his emotions, he knows only one thing with utter and unrelenting clarity: that thrill of feeling is caused by Keith alone. 

Just a smile and he forgets everything he had set out to do. Because for one irrepressible instant, the only thing that matters is the man before him.

“I remember,” Shiro murmurs.

Keith smiles again.

—————

There is nothing as devastating to the human senses as war. It deafens, and it blinds, and it renders you incapable of feeling anything other than your own sense of survival. He’s twenty years old, and he might not live to see tomorrow.

To think a life could be lived in twenty years. But maybe there’s a part of him that thought he would never get this far. After his mother’s disappearance, he had been subsumed under the banner of Marmora, another war orphan to feed the ranks. His story was nothing new. He grew, and he flourished under their tutelage, encouraged every day with the hope that he might not be needed in the coming years. That maybe, after adulthood claimed him, he could simply settle down at his family’s manor and live out the rest of his life as all beings should - free from the violence bred by nations. 

At eighteen, his nation called him to service. Two years later, he’s still providing that ‘service.’ Though Keith has often wondered how anyone could call the ritual slaughter of the battlefield a service. A duty, perhaps, as oaths would have you name it. An obligation to the state? Certainly. But a service? 

Yet here he is, blood-splattered and heart still beating. Standing in a land of ruin all for contested borders and an allegedly sacred shrine. But where is God in all of this? Where is the angel who declared that relic beyond holy and set men at each other’s throats just to behold it? 

All around him, the dying are praying with whatever last breaths they have. Some scream. Some weep. But all hope for the same thing - salvation. For have they not given themselves over for the holiest of causes? 

When Keith cuts down the next soldier, he’s not even aware of the grin he’s wearing. Because there is silence from above. Pure, unadulterated silence. And he knows that all of this is for naught. 

No one is listening. Not even to him, the last one standing on this hill of dying dreams. So, he puts the notion to the test and parts his lips.

“God isn’t listening anymore,” he says, head tilted toward the sky.

And then an answer. Quiet and solemn. It occurs to Keith then that God still heard them, each and every word. He just remained unmoved. 

“No. But I’m not God.”

—————

This is not the first battle he’s witnessed. Shiro doesn’t think it will be the last, but he hopes, with each passing day, that the next one won’t be drenched in humanity’s pain.

“I’m right here,” he murmurs.

Talks had broken down. Altea’s beloved princess had remained unconvinced by Galra’s crown prince. In the days leading up to the official declaration of war, rumors had swirled about the camps of subterfuge and betrayal, how Altea’s former king had met his end at the hands of a Druid’s plot, and all knew the Druids answered only to Zarkon now. 

Some claimed the ultimate betrayal lay with Galra’s Queen, an intermediary between human and divine. A priestess they had called her once until royal affection gave her the crown. She brought with her knowledge, and all her followers, the Druids. Diviners and heaven-seekers, they shunned neither Guardian nor Fallen but saw each as a means to further their understanding of all that was holy in the world. To some, they were blasphemers, pushing the limits and inviting only God’s wrath. That’s why humanity found itself embroiled in wars now. 

A convenient excuse, if you ask Shiro. Guardian or Fallen, an angel could do nothing on the physical plane without human consent. 

And then there are some who say it’s the only possible end when human desire trumps human life. 

“Shiro.” 

Keith whispers his name like a prayer, and though Shiro knows he shouldn’t revel in that, a part of him does. There’s a certain brand of delight that kicks up whenever Keith says his name, but when there’s that touch of need to it, a fire flares up and sears his very core. It makes him feel alive. 

All around them the world looks like it’s falling apart, one person at a time. Keith brings his sword up and parries a blow meant to sever his head from his spine. He does it easily, much to Shiro’s surprise, and ends the Galra soldier’s life just as easily. Shiro has noticed throughout the last few days, that Keith’s kindness never truly leaves him. Not even on the battlefield. When he kills, he tries to kill clean, and for those who had ever laid witness to the wretchedness of a battle’s aftermath, they understand the tragic beauty in such a skill. 

As an arrow sings through the sky, Shiro brings Keith’s attention to it with a brush of fingers to his left cheek. Keith has told him that his touch isn’t quite human, a shade too cold to be called such, but it’s not cold either. Rather, it's a lukewarm thing, as though he’s an impartial existence, straddling the lines between the living and the afterlife, and Shiro thinks that’s not too far off from what he is. 

Neither mortal nor soul. 

They move across the valley like that, Shiro guiding when Keith goes battle-blind. And at the end of it all, Keith stops, his chest heaving, his armor caked in blood and muck, and he turns to where Shiro hovers above him with a smile upon his lips. 

“Where would I be without you?”

The funny thing is, Shiro could have said the same.

—————

“How’s it feel to turn twenty-two on the battlefield, Keith?”

“Like any other day on the battlefield.”

Laughter swells up around him. 

“Ain’t that the fucking truth?” 

“Since when has there been any truth in fucking?”

Keith shifts his gaze to where he had last noted Shiro’s presence, but he finds nothing. The angel has moved on, but not left; he knows that much by the weight in the air around him. Still, to think one of the angelic hoard privy to such a conversation. Before Keith can extricate himself from it, however, his attention is called by another question shouted over the campfire.

“Are you saying you fake it, Rolo?” 

The soldier in question shrugs. All nonchalant, with that flicker of flame in his gaze that says the retort hadn’t been taken as carelessly as his shoulders might suggest. “I’m just saying there’s a whole lot of lies that tend to slide into bed with you.”

“Then you don’t do it out of love?” Keith doesn’t know why he asked, but he did, and now all eyes are trained on him. 

“Is that what you’ve been waiting for, Keith? Love to find its way into the sheets?” Lance laughs as he lifts a battered tin cup to his lips. “Maybe Rolo likes a few other things in bed with him, but there’s always something of love to it, you know? Maybe it’s the way they look or the way they feel. . .”

“Or maybe it’s just loving yourself more than them,” Hunk mutters.

“Hey now! I love each and every one of them! Some more than others. . .but no one wants to settle down with a soldier with the way things are right now.”

Agreement circles around the group in a wave of muttering and clinking glasses. Keith doesn’t get what’s worth cheering over. A lack of love. . .

But Lance is right. No one would be stupid enough to pin their hopes on the dead. 

He rises from the fallen tree he had called his seat for the last hour and nods to the soldiers around the fire. They wave at him, knowing better than to ask why he’s departing, and return to their banter as though he had never been part of it to begin with. But Keith made his peace with that sort of thing long ago. 

“They seem to be in a good mood,” Shiro says.

He grunts at that, but turns to smile at the place he presumes the angel to be. If that faint pulse of a breeze is anything to go by. Shiro had explained to him about his wings during one of their longer rides between battlefronts when Keith’s curiosity had gotten the better of him. What would an angel be without wings, after all?

“You don’t mind them talking like that?” he asks as he starts to crawl into his tent. It’s enough for a single body. He can stand, lay down without fear of his feet sticking out of the front flap (where some like Rolo weren’t so fortunate), and store most of his gear without impinging too much on his ability to move. It’s apparently enough room for Shiro as well, for the angel often seems to accompany him inside once he’s retired from stargazing. 

“I understand what they mean. . .”

“That’s not what I was asking.”

“Then what about love?”

“What about it?”

“Is that true?”

Keith huffs out, annoyed. “Could you be a little more direct, Shiro?”

“You said you need love.”

Everything falls prey to silence. That suffocating, thought-heavy sort of silence that renders even his own heartbeat near inaudible. Keith swallows, then sets about tugging off each boot. “I don’t know what you mean. . .”

The silence continues after that, but he knows Shiro is still present. Because every time Shiro leaves his side, Keith feels it like a shock of ice water over skin. An abrupt cold that tells him something is very suddenly missing. 

“I won’t leave you.”

Just outside his tent flap, Keith can see the stars above. It had been a cloudless night with a moon so full he thought silver would spill from the sky. And yet, the stars are as unchanging as they always had been.

“I know,” he murmurs. “I know. . .”

—————

Loss renders some things incomplete. What Shiro doesn’t expect is the way it could unearth something entirely different.

Regris had been Keith’s childhood friend. Since the war’s start, their units had run across each other on occasion. Mostly under the direction of Marmora’s leader, Kolivan, as the war front shifted and new objectives were handed down the ranks. The latest task had been the defense of an Altean town, vital to the flow of supplies. Without it, half of Altea’s war front would have shut down, easy prey for a better supplied Galra army. It was Keith’s elite squad that had been stationed there first. Regris came with Kolivan three weeks later, and together Shiro watched as both fell into the age-old act of catching up. 

When the idea of a Guardian had come up, it only earned Keith the lift of an eyebrow and this slight curve of mouth that wasn’t quite a smile and certainly wasn’t a smirk but seemed to convey something that Keith understood inherently. Regris asked nothing further on the topic but allowed Keith to expound upon Shiro’s presence as he wanted, when he wanted. By the end of the first week, Shiro realized that he had been accepted as a part of Keith himself.

And he began to understand why Keith seemed a little more settled around the man. He was quiet, respectful, but threw every ounce of himself into the fight so that there was little to question as to his loyalty or his resolve. 

So, when the attack finally came, and the town’s defenses were put to the test, Shiro wasn’t surprised to see both Keith and Regris spilling their all onto the battlefield. They were beautifully efficiently as if one had taken all the raw potential of a tornado and siphoned it down to the form of a man. But unlike Keith, Regris fought without a Guardian, and though he tried to warn the man, he wasn’t accustomed to Shiro’s touch, and he certainly couldn’t hear Shiro’s voice. And as much as he had wanted to save Regris, Shiro had wanted to save Keith more. 

Keith fought like a lion enraged after Regris fell. Even after the battle’s end, it took an hour before he finally allowed anyone other than Shiro around his friend’s body. It was only after Kolivan had broken through the ranks surrounding them that Keith relented and grief finally battered him down. 

By the time they returned to his tent, Keith’s face had lost its color, and his gaze had taken on the fevered panic of the lost. He said nothing, however. Simply set himself down inside and stared at the stars through the open flap. 

They’ve been like this for over an hour now.

“Keith.” Shiro says it as gently as possible, not out of fear of breaking the man, but out of uncertainty. When was the last time he had ever comforted another being? 

No response. 

He settles down beside him, and slowly, tentatively, unfurls his wing and wraps it around Keith’s body. It strikes him then how small Keith is in comparison. Shiro has always been used to looking at him from above or at an angle, all of which led him to believe that Keith was taller than most of his fellow humans. But here, in this small battle-worn space, Shiro remembers just how fragile human life is. 

“I could have. . .” Keith chokes out.

Shiro shakes his head. He knows where this is going. 

“If I had fought closer to him. . .or. . .or. . .”

“Keith.”

It’s a haunted stare that finds him, and for the briefest of moments, Shiro wonders if Keith can see him. If somehow, at this boundary between loss and life, the distinctions between their realms have blurred, and all things became visible. Then, Keith blinks, and the illusion is gone. 

The fear, however, remains. Brilliant as a star’s death and turning the violet of Keith’s eyes to flame. 

“What if I lose you, Shiro?”

That’s the moment when he sees it. Not Keith himself, but his own heart laid bare, and Shiro realizes that angels can fear as deeply as any human. Though he can’t look away, inch by inch, his hand claims the space between them until it settles lightly over Keith’s. 

“I’m right here.”

And that’s when Keith begins to sob.

—————

It isn’t a terrible wound, all things considered, but it’s one that will keep him from the front lines for at least six weeks. Without Shiro’s guidance, it would have been the killing blow the Galra general Sendak had been looking to land; instead, it left him with a gash in his thigh that made walking something of a herculean task and running near-impossible without an overdose of adrenaline.

Kolivan had come personally to look him over, and it’s with his letter in hand that he’s riding back to Marmora’s base camp, nestled at the foot of the Yendailian mountains. He’ll be there in half a day’s time. Keith can’t say he’s grateful for the opportunity though. Part of him is still rioting, demanding he put an end to this war and ensure that no one else has to lose the way he has lost, that no one else spends their days living with the fear of potential ends guillotining their future dreams. 

That’s something he’s had to confront, over and over, since Regris’ death.

“You’re thinking of something again. . .”

Keith turns his head to the left and offers a tight smile. Shiro, always so observant. 

“What happened to that angel?”

“Which one?”

Rubbing at his jaw, Keith returns his attention to the road ahead and tries to sort out of his approach. Or rather, why he’s going here now when they’ve had months to examine this. Maybe that’s simply where the paths all led when you’ve been confronted with your own mortality. 

You ask the questions with the potential consequences, and find out if it’s all worth it.

“Remember when we were talking about the stars? You said there was an angel who tried to change a man’s fate. . .”

“Ah.” It’s an abrupt sound, as though Shiro had been taken by surprise only to realize this was always going to happen. A hand that had been dealt long ago and was now coming into play. “God decided to give him a second chance.”

“Why?”

“Because his sin was different from the other Fallen.”

“I thought sin was sin to God.”

“It’s not that clear-cut. . .”

“That’s a little unfair, don’t you think? If the angel’s sin wasn’t so great, then why go so far as to banish him?”

A puff of wind rolls over him. Keith takes that as the angel equivalent of a shoulder shrug. 

“He couldn’t have become a Guardian otherwise.” 

It’s not the words so much as the tone that renders Keith silent. Soft, affectionate. Entirely unrepentant. He swallows then, feeling the weight of his own heart on his tongue. Better not to speak too hastily or he may end up spilling more truth than he cares to admit at this moment.

After a half-mile goes by in silence, Keith finally asks, “So, all Guardians have been banished from Heaven?”

“Most. A rare few remain in God’s good standing.”

“And those who aren’t, the majority then?”

“Are tasked with something to regain their place in Heaven.”

“Watching over a human. . .” 

Keith takes Shiro’s lack of response as an acknowledgment of that fact. He continues, “And if the angel fails?”

“He dies alongside his human.”

Five words, and it’s like the sky cracked above him. Any minute now, shards of blue would start raining down over him. “Why. . .why would God give you a knight?! He knew war was coming. . .He knows these things, doesn’t He?!”

There’s a panic in his voice Keith can’t control, ridden far too hard by anger and unable to be stopped as it runs through his words. His hands tighten around the reins, and without realizing it, he pulls his mount to an abrupt halt. They stand there now, surrounded by a handful of farms run bare by the war, dust swirling in their wake. 

When Shiro responds, Keith only hears that soft, sweet ache in his voice, the one that mirrors his heart’s own. 

“Maybe because He knew my happiness would no longer be found in Heaven.”

—————

_I love you._

He hadn’t been meant to hear those words, but they’d come tumbling out of Keith’s mouth one night as he lay there, battling sleep on a cot. Tomorrow, they are to ride to the war front again. Shiro understands the fitful nature of Keith’s sleep at this time, but the words had been unexpected. He had sat there, motionless on the edge of the cot, not even a quiver to his wings, as his name followed those three words and made the object of _love_ as undeniable as the sun setting in the east. 

Anyone would have understood something so basic. Shiro, on the other hand, tried to reason out all the ways it could be wrong.

How it couldn't be him.

But everything led him back to that very simple truth. After all, the surprise that had hit him upon hearing those words had no backlash at all. Instead, they sank into his very being, warming up his core as they joined with those very same words harbored there. The spark needed to restart the fire Shiro had carefully been tending. He had let those emotions burn only so hot, denying Keith the right to them as if in doing so he could protect them both. 

Love could be a double-edged weapon, and whereas some would happily bleed upon its blade, Shiro wished more for Keith than he did for himself. 

So, when he heard those words, he wasn’t surprised by the joy that lit up his soul, nor was he shocked by the fear that welled up in its shadow. He sat there, considering both in turn, knowing that at the end of it all, there was little he could do. He would love this man and all that he embodied, every bit of human that made him great, and he would continue to watch over him, to see his life run its course and share in the happiness that found him. 

It hadn’t started like this. When the Archangel came to him with God’s offer, Shiro had only thought of getting back to the stars. He had missed their songs, missed their stories. He had missed the way humans took delight in their movements, now nothing more than a fairy tale. He didn’t think twice about accepting the deal made to him, to protect one human knight as he could very well change the tide of humanity itself if he lived long enough to do so. Another fate in his hands, though this time of God’s choosing. 

He had understood well enough what it meant should he fail in his task. If this human’s light dimmed, so too would his. And the stars would forever be out of his reach. 

Shiro had only thought of getting back home. 

At this moment though. . .he reaches over and brushes the hair from Keith’s face. Candlelight gilds the black strands, the planes of his face. It’s not a halo effect, but Keith had never looked so divine. With his touch, lips part and a sigh escapes; there are no further words, however. Only a smile that softens his features and makes the truth of this moment as tangible to him as the scar on Keith’s cheek. 

“I think I love you too. . .”

—————

He’s dressed in all white, and his wings are the silver of starlight and hope, and his eyes are steel grey, the color that promises the renewal of life and not the drowning of dreams.

—————

“Why do you like the stars so much?”

Shiro purses his lips and shifts his gaze to the sky. Above them, the stars glitter, overwhelming the cloudless night, and for a brief moment, he thinks he can hear their calling. That quiet chiming of cosmic-speak as all the universe connects. 

“I was born for the stars, so maybe I had no choice but to love them,” he replies. There’s no animosity or regret to be heard; only a fondness fostered over the years.

A hum answers him. Shiro can tell Keith is unconvinced but is still trying to accept what he had heard in the silence now settled between them. 

“Do you wish you had been born differently then? Could you have asked God for another role?”

He shakes his head at that, aware that Keith can’t see the action. But he feels more human around the man, unable to hold himself stoically aloft while engaging with him as so many others of his kind do. “No. If all those moments led me to this, then I’m fine with being born for the stars, Keith. Besides, they’re beautiful even if they are distant. Seeing them now like this, I can’t help but remember that.”

Keith’s mouth starts to curve, and Shiro waits for it, that moment when his smile starts to truly blossom. When it does, that strange little thrill courses through his body and he starts smiling in return. 

“Will I ever get to see you?”

That’s not the question Shiro had been prepared for. He clears his throat quietly, a gesture learned not from Keith but from one of his fellow knights, Thace. It seemed to be the thing to do when you needed a moment to collect your thoughts. Keith apparently understood it well enough and allowed Shiro the room to speak.

“I don’t know to be honest,” he says, softly as though afraid that by admitting it he might somehow shatter the possibility of what he says next. “But I’ve heard that at the moment of a human’s death, if all went well according to God, there’s a moment when a Guardian and his charge might see one another.”

Keith nods along with his words, his lips pulling tight. Uncertainty grinding against unflinching devotion, like two swords clashing. 

“I’d like to see you, Shiro.”

—————

“Zarkon has fallen!”

“He’s killed him!”

“The Galra are calling for retreat!”

“Raise the flag! Send it down the lines!”

To hear and still be able to understand the consequences of those words while also understanding there is nothing more you can do about them is perhaps the oddest feeling Keith has ever come across in his life. At his feet is the self-proclaimed emperor of the Althaia continent; in his chest are two arrows, each felt acutely when they penetrated, seconds apart, as he had tried to wrench his sword free. And now, every time he tries to breathe, there’s a rattling sound that he knows shouldn’t be there but he can’t displace. 

Like the slowing beat of his heart, it’s simply a part of him now. 

“Keith. . .”

Shiro is so damn beautiful though. He can’t seem to dislodge that thought either, and somehow it makes the cacophony around him fade away. He can hear the beat of Shiro’s wings, and feel the warmth of his touch, and as their eyes meet, he can see every flicker of emotion in the steel-gray of Shiro’s gaze. 

Sadness. Acceptance. Adoration. Love. 

He reaches up, barely feeling the twinge of pain in his chest as he forces arrow-staked muscles to move, and places his hand upon Shiro’s cheek. Keith knows then, as he’s known for a while now, that he wants nothing more than to fade into Shiro’s touch. So, when angelic fingers find his skin and slink into his hair, he starts to smile.

“I fought for everything,” Keith says. All around him the world sways. The pain ebbs away as his knees begin to buckle, and he falls, unafraid, into outstretched arms. “I fought for you. . .”

**Author's Note:**

>  _Tu vero felix, Agricola, non vitae tantum claritate, sed etiam opportunitate mortis._  
> 
> "Thou wast indeed fortunate, Agricola, not only in the splendour of thy life, but in the opportune moment of thy death."


End file.
